This movie might be useful as a backdrop for a hot date night at a late, late showing over at the drive-in theater back in the teenage days (1970s). That is, if there were more monster noises, you know...grunts, growling, snorts and of course, plenty of screaming going on. Me personally, I always find it more interesting if the monster in a horror flick spends more time devouring its juicy morsels; but that's just me. More blood and guts and less pseudo intellectual stew!

(Disclaimer: the below is not directed at the uploader. No one who uploads philms to IA should be rebuked because, if nothing else, seeing a philm on IA can save a potential DeeVeeDee purchaser time and money and Ghod knows there are far too many people trying to flog terrible motion pictures on DeeVeeDee in a despicable effort to part the unsuspecting from their hard-earned dough.)

The short version: philm buffs should think twice before making an effort to view this.

The longer version: I am one of those sorts who is easily amused by anything shown on philm. Even so, I could not find much here to live on.

The characters are cardboard, the camera work is rudimentary, and the buildup is not worth the payoff. By the time the viewer finds out what the "it" is that has hitherto been referred to in hushed tones, it is too late for him/her to feel anything other than very hard done by.

(Frankly, the large snake shown near the beginning of the philm is the scariest/most amusing thing you are going to see.)

It is *not* that monsters with ping pong ball eyes can't be fun: they can. Rather, it's that the actors are either a) so wooden or b) so over the top that by the time the big mystery is revealed, *nothing* can save this philm from Bad Movie Hell.

Bottom line: this is only worth seeing if you have one hour and twenty minutes to fill and absolutely, positively cannot contrive a better way to fill it. If you go into this expecting it's going to be so bad it's good, you will only emerge from the experience a bitter and disappointed person.

There aren't many philms that are entirely irredeemable, but this is one of them. I am writing this review in the hopes of persuading any would-be viewers to steer clear and direct their time and attention elsewhere.

(Seriously, there are tens of thousands of philms on IA and just about any of them are going to be better than what you will see here.)

When I was a kid, we vacationed in Arkansas, The Ozarks to be exact, to visit some relatives, and one of the family adventures was to visit this cave and do a little spelunking. To make a long story short, all through out the tour all the guide could talk about was how this movie, which had yet to be released, was filmed there. Lots of photos were shared and I was particularly fascinated with "the creature". A year or two later, back in NYC, the movie appeared in the TV guide and I begged my peeps to let me stay up late and watch it.... Talk about being deflated! That was when I learned that not everything is what people tell you it is... because according to the guide, Cecil B. DeMille filmed there! But alas, that was not at all the case. I'm actually enjoying it more now because of the memories.... so 3 stars.

Cheap, dumb, annoying. And oddly watchable.

Another reviewer wonders how Kirk went from Disney to being in this. He was gay. He had an affair that Disney heard about and they let him go. Pretty hard fall after that.

Creepy redneck family and a monster with pin pong eyeballs make for superb late-night viewing.
Low-budgeted and it still holds my interest.

The movie was ok, and the acting was good, but the monster was a joke, a guy in a rubber outfit, it should make all monster everywhere hang their heads in shame. But the mad caretaker was the best, and it had a good plot. So give it a look, and stay on the highway lol!

As the title of the review suggests, this is the last project he was contracted to make with AIP and unlike the others, this film was not remake of a film released in theaters. This movie is based on a script which was in the AIP vaults. The original film (which was supposed to star Peter Lorre) was never produced.

Tommy Kirk, Bill Thurman, and Annabelle Weenick all return to work with Buchanan. Kirk from "Mar's Needs Women" and the other two in most of his other films from this period.

The film actually moves at a decent pace up until the overlong flashback which tells Bella's story.

Again, you see the limitations of no budget ( I still wonder if he sold the fact that he promised results with so little investment when he got the AIP deal) and probably not much (too little IMO) time in preproduction, preplanning of the project.

Another 3 stars for these Buchanan films for me because again, they are a product of the time.

This is actually based on an unused script that was going to star PETER LORRE as the madman! Would have paid to see that, but I'm glad Bucky's version is free! 3 stars for the LONGEST flashback in movie history that didn't involve the whole film.

The acting is excellent. I'd give it 5 stars. But the plot is... well.

Whooo,
Bad on many levels, but I must admit, I was so glad to see Norman die. I just had hoped it would have been more horrible. Good Guy New Yorkers meet Evil Southerners. They are going to L.A. The End?
I am not going to disect this film. It is too easy. I did find it amusing, so...5 stars.

There are two ways to view this film. While on the surface it's a cheapo monster flick peopled with lost innocents lost in the clutches of a crazy backwoods hick, there's a lot more going on beneath the surface of Larry Buchanan's It's Alive. Produced from a discarded AIP screenplay by Richard Matheson, It's Alive! becomes a metaphor for the "old age" giving way to the "new age" and the death of the old. Yes, even b-movies can be thought-provoking at times, so based largely on the story-within-the-story, I'd give it 5 stars based on the actors, storyline and direction alone...but the ineffective (in this film) monster costume subtracts one star.

The last of Larry B's Azalea Pictures 8-movie deal with AIP, it looks like he was growing weary of cranking out $25,000 films by the time this was shot. It's Alive! is a very strange, but oddly fun film, definitely Larry B's darkest effort.

Check out the maniacle laughter at 42:43.

Also: "With each new horrible act he tried to
out-do the last..."

How do you top a dead mouse on her dinner plate?
After she falls asleep blow a referee's whistle
in her ear!

You can tell there were some sick minds that put this baby together.

Yeah, I'm talking about Kirk's career. How does a kid go from working for Walt Disney to working for Larry Buchanan? And such a fast drop, too. I hope the kid had a parachute. With that said, I will give this flick some credit. After all, Larry buchanan was known for making z-grade remakes of b-movies, and at least this was no remake. But the monster was used in an earlier movie of Larry's.

It's Alive